Thanks for the responses. What I have come to gather from them is;
- Go to confession/adoration.
- I am crazy (no one said the C word, but it’s implied) and need to medicate.
I know it’s coming across like that, and I see why you’d react this way. Clearly, adoration is helpful, but I think there are many things you can do in addition to formal prayer.
Dude, I was in severe psychosis for 11 years, to the point I could not work. For several months at a time I would have depression so bad I would wallow on a mattress on the floor for literally 23 hours a day wishing the world would end. When I got angry I actually did things that were quite destructive but in ways I wouldn’t get caught.
I was helped out of it. I did a lot of prayer, and I now believe in prayer – the way I have experienced it, it actually works.
The reason I was trying to break it down is that I agree with you, this thing is not something a medicine can fix. That said, medicine can help reduce the symptoms, but if the symptoms themselves aren’t causing you any particular problems – then you certainly may elect to put up with them. For me, given enough different ways of looking at things, I start seeing them as they are and it helps me get perspective.
The reason people give such quick advice, is they are all too specialized – just like doctors. A human being has components that are physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, and sexual (sexual related to self-identity). A problem in one or all of these areas, may look to a psychologist like you need therapy, to a psychiatrist like you need drugs, to a preacher you need prayer, etc. I learned all this from my first day with a Spiritual Director, whom I had asked why the doctors and everybody acts so crazy and can’t hear what I say.
So it’s up to you, I’d suggest, to orchestrate a full-person approach that doesn’t treat one problem at the expense of another.
Basically I’ve been through the tunnel of horrors and am back. I had medication, but I had days where I was so manic I wouldn’t have slept for weeks at a time, without tranquilizers. Medication kept me out of the lockup. Thank God you don’t have those problems.
Medication may help, but what most people don’t realize about the medicine is that the medicine doesn’t fix mental problems. It just controls the symptoms. My psychiatrist likens it to a cast on a broken leg. The cast itself doesn’t fix anything, but will help keep things in place so there is no further damage while it heals itself. Similarly, the drugs don’t correct the thinking, they just reduce the severity of the symptoms. The medicine kept me from getting locked up many times.
The problem is we have a society who thinks that a) professionals know it all, and b) don’t try this at home. You can study, pray, and work on your own thinking to make this fix. I know it; I did it. Not many people would have the opportunity and the freedom to do it like I did, but even from the way you write I know you can do it yourself. Therapy might help but maybe not.
There are a couple more “holistic” prayer approaches that could yield tremendous long term benefit than, for example, petition prayer. Namely, contemplative prayer forms that invite true healing from the Lord. And when you have received healing from the Lord like I have, you end up better than how you started.
One thing I note is that your anger comes through in the descriptions you’re giving, but your posts themselves are not coming through as someone with an “anger problem.” To me this could be a clue as to when and under what circumstances the anger programs in your mind’s computer launch. So somehow, your “speech processing” functions are able to work outside the anger – I think that observation might be useful.
The reason I ask these kinds of questions is to find “unturned stones” that could reveal points of view that can heal. For me, seeing the situation from many points of view including non-Catholic helped immensely.
And personally I like Joyce Meyers. She is an example of someone who has succeeded a terrible abuse and a terrible bad attitude and is now happy and has even baptized her abuser. So don’t listen to her for theology; if you listen, listen for inspiration. Listen for the attitude. Listen for the sound of a voice that has conquered great evil, depression, and bitterness.
After all this, what do you think this could break down as? What sort of changes have you made in the last five years or six months that may contribute – not necessarily “cause” because “cause” is too slippery to be caught any time soon, usually.
What sort of advice are you looking for? Books? Videos? Not really sure but so far aren’t feeling it? If you want to chat more and can’t do it in this environment please feel free to send me PM’s. And if we want more than that, I have another place we can talk a little more openly.
Alan
